Definition of "sympathy"

sympathy

/ˈsɪm.pəθ.i/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural sympathies
1. A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another.
  Quotations
  If you want sympathy you’ll find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. Sympathy may pay well in the short term, but if you cash in on sympathy, it will take everything from you in the long run.
  2018, Sergeant first class Greg Stube, Conquer Anything: A Green Beret’s Guide to Building Your A-Team
  1. (in the plural) The formal expression of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune.
  2. The ability to share the feelings of another.
2. Inclination to think or feel alike; emotional or intellectual accord; common feeling.
  1. (in the plural) Support in the form of shared feelings or opinions.
  2. Feeling of loyalty; tendency towards, agreement with or approval of an opinion or aim; a favorable attitude.
3. An affinity, association or mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition.
  Quotations
  He observed, also, the frequent sympathy of volcanic and terremotive action in remote districts of the earth's surface, thus showing how deeply seated must be the cause of these convulsions.
  1858, William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences
  A peculiarity of were-animals is the sympathy that exists between their animal form and that of the human with whom it is connected.
  1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 121
  The solution to coach riding defects, at least, seems to require much more co-operative practical experiment by all engineering departments to achieve better sympathy between the vehicle body, its undercarriage and the track on which it rides.
  1960 December, “The riding of B.R. coaches”, in Trains Illustrated, page 706
  Sympathy likened anything to anything else in universal attraction, e.g. the fate of men to the course of the planets.
  1997, Chris Horrocks, “The Renaissance Episteme”, in Introducing Foucault, Totem Books; Icon Books, page 67
  1. Mutual or parallel susceptibility or a condition brought about by it.
  2. (art) Artistic harmony, as of shape or colour in a painting.